Happy Halloween: 7 Ads Which Are Sure To Shock You This October

To celebrate Halloween we’ve used our content testing tool UnrulyEQ to identify the ads that generated intense feelings of shock from viewers.

According to the findings, a controversial trailer for Deep Silver’s 2011 videogame Dead Island, produced by Glasgow-based Axis Animation, finished top after generating 11 times more shock than the average UK ad!

That put it just ahead of “Monsters”, a startling 2013 PSA from Finnish organization Fragile Childhood, which features kids whose parents have been turned into scary monsters under the influence of alcohol.

In third place is a 2013 ad for a Japanese tyre company called Autoway, which even includes a disclaimer ahead of its terrifying advert.

Other ads to appear in our ‘Shocking 7’ include a car commercial that is almost certain to have you spitting out your morning coffee and a phone commercial that attracted more complaints from UK viewers than any other ad in 2011!

Check out all the ads below along with their shock scores, and if you’re watching this with a coffee in hand be sure to put it down before you begin!

Happy Halloween!

# 7 Dirt Devil – The Exorcist – 16% shock

#6 – Little girl – Phones 4u – 22% shock

#5 – K-fee Commercial – 28% shock

#4 – PS3 Baby commercial – 28% shock

#3 – Scary Japanese Tire Commercial – 29% shock

#2 – Fragile Childhood – Monsters – 32% shock

#1 – Dead Island: Official Announcement Trailer – 34% shock

We tested all these ads using our content measurement tool UnrulyEQ, which uses a combination of audience panels, facial coding and machine learning to measure viewers’ emotional responses to advertising. The results were then compared to Unruly’s database of thousands of ads to see which ads generated the highest levels of shock among viewers.

UnrulyEQ is a product suite which delivers higher emotional impact and better business outcomes for advertisers using the power of video, click here to find out more.